Re: Dia XML format, Graphviz, Instaviz etc.

[Lars Ræder Clausen <lars raeder dk>]

On Tue, 2009-03-24 at 07:15 +0900, Glen Low wrote:
> Lars, All
> 
> On 24/03/2009, at 1:06 AM, dia-list-request gnome org wrote:
> 
> >> Hi All
> >>
> >> I'm the author of the iPhone graph sketching program http://
> >> instaviz.com and sometime contributor to AT&T Graphviz project (CPL-
> >> licensed).
> >>
> >> I'm currently working on a Visio VDX exporter for Graphviz. I was
> >> curious about whether I could generalize it to output DIA as well,
> >> since the DIA support in Graphviz is rather old. Do you have any
> >> documentation about the Dia XML format, I don't see anything that's
> >> easily Googleable?
> >
> > Given that I never got anything usable out of graphviz' Dia output, I
> > think that'd be great -- dunno how easily all the bezier splines will
> > convert, but you may have better ideas than me there.
> >
> > The dtd for the diagram files can be found in the doc directory of the
> > distribution.  However, it doesn't say much about the objects in
> > question, and as far as I remember there is no further description.  
> > That
> > said, it's pretty easy to figure out from a few .dia files.
> 
> 
> Could you email me a couple of representative .dia files? Preferably  
> with a .pdf or .svg to compare against so I know what I'm looking at.

Sending a few in a separate mail.

> Does Dia not have bezier splines?

It does, but they use a different model than graphviz does, and my
experience has been that the conversion is suboptimal.

> I'll have to see if I can get Dia running on my PS3 Fedora Core box.  
> Otherwise I have nothing I can quickly test it on.

If it isn't already installed, it should not be a problem to do so,
whether from RPMs or from source.